Foreword to the first edition

China, Japan, India, and Indonesia are, in their several ways, of tremendous importance to their neighbors and to the world at large. The progress of Communist revolution in China’s vast agrarian society, the success story of Japan’s industrial revolution, the efforts of India to combine the pursuit of economic development with the preservation of democratic institutions, and the problems of political stability and of population pressure in modem Indonesia are issues of general and crucial significance. It is therefore surprising that it should have taken so long for the study of these countries to have become completely accepted as a normal part of the offerings of Australian schools and universities. The present series of volumes is designed to aid that study and, at the same time, to offer a treatment which can interest the general reader.

The authors of the four individual studies which go to make up the series* have been left considerable freedom in handling their subjects as they see them, but they have accepted one common principle: they share the view that the study of any Asian country cannot be seen solely in terms of its recent history and its present situation. They recognize the persistence of tradition into the present and the way in which contemporary behavior may reflect the long-established patterns of ancient societies. They share also the view that, quite apart from its importance in interpreting the present, the study of traditional societies is worthwhile for its own sake.

Each of these volumes therefore is concerned to place “modern” history in the context of the longer history of the country concerned, whether it is the shape of early Asian trade and the rivalry of maritime and land-based kingdoms in the Indonesian archipelago, the artistic triumphs of the Gupta period in India, the character of Confucian thought in China or the contribution of bureaucracy in Japan. If history must have a utilitarian purpose it is hoped that, in this way, students will be led to a more subtle and sympathetic understanding of the character of the modem countries of Asia.

—J. D. Legge Monash University

’This book was originally published by Cassell Australia in their Cassell Asian Histories series.